Rise of the batman (2 chapters)
by MostIllogical85
Summary: This is 2 chapters from my upcoming novel which i'm tentaively calling RISE OF THE BATMAN. the story marks the early days of the caped crusaders forays in Gotham. one of these scenes is a flashback scene to before he was batman.


CHAPTER 4 V

**THE CRYPTS **

**AND GORDON THOUGHT THE MONASTERY ABOVE WAS BAD ENOUGH! **Upon his first downwards step below ground level into the crypt itself a foul stench threw him off his center of gravity! The immense type of stench that briefly sent a tremor through his eyelids, let alone his nostrils. The combined effort it has taken himself and 2 of his GCPD officers to remove the stone coffin, which rested above the entrance to the crypt, had seemed the worst of their nightly labours or so he had thought. The pushing aside of the coffin was a breeze to the hellish smell that wafted upwards. Once Gordon and his 2 men acclimatise to the stench they realise that what greets them is pitch darkness. Assumably these chambers had been built centuries earlier and it was probably the 19th century the last time a human wandered in them... a live human at least! After several minutes using their Cellular devices for light a 4th Officer shimmies down the steps from the monastery and hands Gordon a Torch.

A further minute down the line and Gordon takes the opportunity to make a call to Headquarters. There must have been around 10 feet of solid concrete between the Crypt they were in and the monastery above. It was faint but he managed to get a half-decent signal on his Cellular Phone.

**GORDON:** "Yeah Phil... sorry if i'm breaking up. Me and a few of the boys from the 5th precinct are over at the Monastery on 123rd. Well to put it a tad more accurately we're err... well we're _under_ it"...

A befuzzled voice from over the line intonates the words '_under it? _' back to the Gordon.

**GORDON: **"yeah well we're in one of the underground crypts beneath the Monastery searching around. Safe to say the health and safety brigade weren't around when these chambers we're built". Gordon permits himself a restrained chuckle.

2 Minutes in and they arrive in a chamber with 4 doors facing them. the 4 men split up and head down their respective darkened paths...

Gordon's eyeballs illuminate when he sees the chasm only 2 feet in front his forward foot! A vast chasm of blackness seemingly eaten into the floor and the wall to his right. Only around 3 feet in diameter but large enough for a human to fall through. Had he not see it he would have fallen right through it. How far? he couldn't possibly know but this was the realms of darkness where the mind starts to wonder. 5 feet? 20 feet? 100 feet?

**At that moment the voice hits him!** In one surreal motion His consciousness hazes out his peripheral vision and focuses on the dark chasms infront of him. The voice is coming from a few feet behind him... is it close..very close. He dare not turn around! His legs feel weak, his throat contorts.. his 5' 11" posture instantly loses an inch. After the flurry of erratic heartbeats that occur a certain ease overcomes when he realises the voice. The stream of words seem co-ordinated, orchestrated even eloquent perhaps. They do not match the husky tone which accomapnies them. It is the voice of The Bat-Man.

**THE BAT-MAN:** "Sergeant Gordon is it not"?

GORDON: "i knew it. I knew it all along... you are real"...

**THE BAT-MAN:** "You and your men are wasting your time here

GORDON: "Let me guess... CIA? NSA? too mysterious to be '_the bureau _' "?

The 2 men seem to be having alternate conversations. Gordon is transfixed on the Bat-Man conspiracy. The Bat-Man is trying to get to the heart of the crime. He relays to all the intel' he has accumulated over the past couple of nights. Batman hands Gordon a small transmitting device through which him and Gordon can communicate with each other. then without any forewarning he vaults into a darkened chasm in the ground into the very depths of the Earth. Gordons eyes look on incredulously as the gaping hole in the ground.

**AT 250 FEET BELOW GROUND LEVEL THE SOUNDS OF THE RATS **are no longer drowned out by the humdrum of the Urban Jungle above. A golden-like glare illuminate these darkened, irrigated echelons of the City. After an hour wading knee-deep through sewage waters the Bat-Man puts the transmitter to his ear and attempts initial audio contact with Sargent Gordon.

**BATMAN: **"Gordon can you hear me"?

**GORDON:** "Batman where are you now"?

**BATMAN:** "I can't be sure but if i were to hazard a guess... i'd say I am somewhere underneath Midtown.. somewhere between Broadway and the Eastern reservoir right about now".

All the while during the conversation he is very careful not to slip in colloquialisms- nothing that could give away his age, his class background or the area he grew up in.

It takes a few seconds but eventually he notices the Vagrants on the platform to his right. They have been watching him for several minutes. They are too inflamed with Cocaine to be of any threat to him. Most likely they will forget this encounter in the morning.

VAGRANT: "hey I told you Johnnie the legends are true. Look it's the batman. He really does exist. What are you doing down here Bats"?

BATMAN: "I'm on a case. Have you guys seen anything suspicious down here during the past month or so".

The 3 vagrants tell Batman what they know and then put him down a darkened tunnel which leads to the midtown area. As he trundles off one of the men takes to opportunity to probe the Dark Knight.

VAGRANT: "what does the city look like from up high".

BATMAN: "It looks the same as from below... a perpetually decaying sea of Urban Fungai"…..

**MISSION TO THE EAST END**

**** 28 MONTHS AGO*****

The walk into the East End is a long and lonely one...

The neon lights dominate the horizon as a distinctive burgundy huw has overtaken the evening's sky. It may well be 2 O' Clock in the early hours but this part of Gotham is as alive as the financial district during midday! From here I can see the projects of Old Town in the distance. They dominate the sky-line horizon of the low-level slums here. And yet now... the sight of those derelict towers triggers a memory in my mind! My vague memories of coming here on a curious trip when _I_ was but 18 years old...but that had been years in the past. Those young, naive days of old teenagehood! It was bad then... practically incomprehensible to the teenage mind... But no.. this was incomprenhensible to the average 40 year old mind!

**Is it possible it has actually gotten worse **in the past decade or so? Pimps, prostitutes and sex shops line the entire boulevard I am currently on. The street corners are illuminated by the Vertically-aligned Neon signs... these are approximately 20 feet above face level! At ground level there is a horizontally-aligned Neon blur of sleaze... advertising various Salaicous acts ranging from **'BONDAGE'** to **'ORGY'** to **'NECROPHILIA'... **these illuminate the street. After the first dozen they all seem to blur into once great hazy stream of sleaze. The curvaceous silohuettes of vastly-differently proportioned women can be seen shimmying in every other shop window. I push on further.. After rebuffing the approaches of two transvestite hookers I find myself in RED ALLEY. The main boulervard of the Red Light District! Okay what's good for the goose is good for the gander yeah? Well perhaps not... **This is 21st century Sodom and Gommorah surely! **

**Then I walk deeper and deeper into the Neon horizon. **It hit me and it me hard. That smell! That nauseating smell, that lung-busting smelly... that acute mixture of cheap cider, marijuana, urine-soaked curbs and strong perfume was in the nights air- the mixture that only the East end could concuct!

I'd only been back in Gotham for a couple months and already the depraved images I had long since left had returned to my mind.

At this point a young girl in scantily-clad fatigues caresses my thigh. How she got so close to me without so much as the **faintest hint of a footstep i'll never know! **As my eyes turn to gaze at her the illuminous whites of her youthful eyes she looks back on up at me, but after a few seconds a fade of pink sprays across them, seconds later its turns to a distinct green-ish fade. The Neon lights of the red district are taking effect. Incredulously I stare into this young girls eyes... she can't be a day older than 14!

**Bruce:** "HOW OLD ARE YOU?"

**Young Prostitute:** "I'm as young as you want me to be".

In those few miliseconds the entirety of my morally-inclined psyche comes crashing down upon me. To see a girl barely old enough to fit into a size 6 dress attempt to sexually arouse me... well...her hair is bright Ginger hair is bountifully filled out... her Triple D Bra fills that black corsett out very well.. her waist very much slimmer in comparison... not an ounce of fat on the stoumach... her arse... well... her arse...well... am I being tempted?##...**SNAP OUT OF IT YOU PERVERT!?*%# $? **

But still that inner monologue will not escape me. SHE CAN'T BE A DAY OVER 14 YEARS OLD!

I voice my displeasure to the Pimp- I tell him that we are 'done' and that her days as a prostitute are over!

_UNBEKNOWN TO ME at the time... but I was being looked down upon from on high. Four stories up in one of the nearbye whorehouses she was watching over me. The blind is drawn and she peers out onto the street threw the window 4 stories up. _

_**#JOHN: **__"Selina come back to bed. forget it... What's the comotion outside. It's not some do-gooder, rookie cop again is it"? _

_**SELINA KYLE: **__"NO- It's nothing.. nothing to be worried about. we're paid up with the cops around here". _

_**#JOHN: **__"selina...forget it..who is it?"_

_**SELINA KYLE:**__ "just some drunken fool trying to get himself killed"... _

**That swift swing of the knife** raises his blood pressure. Not within his full frontal view but the metallic glint immediately calculates within the periphery of his eyes. No longer than 2 heartbeats and the metallic object makes a violent jibe towards his side. The first tear is within the lower reaches of my right thigh. The pain is great but the numbing sensation seconds later has some hang-time. My _ against this onslaught is impressive. The adrenaline carrys me onwards. But I don't totally strike back.. I wait for the anger to boil up within the recesses of my mind. is that my great weakness? my dependency of anger boiling up?

I wait for that moment when my jaw clenches and my temples flare... But yet it still does not happen. This could have proven costly as the second jab takes out a few inches of my left thigh. By chance no artery has been pierced save for a small river of blood that manifests itself. Within half a breath the right hand has connected full-on with Leroys left cheekbone. I am actually startled when he flies to the floor, the cushioning of his face upon the concrete results in disasterous effects for him. The right side of his face shatters instantly and with the sirens of his almighty yelp I then realise the full force of my insticntive punch. Several fractures to the right side of his face and several kicks to his torso later ... follow as my heartbeat continues to gather pace. His creme suit is now covered in an expansive reddi-ish tint. His blade fortutiously (for me) bobbles into a nearby gutter as he lays sprawled out over the curb.

The cops turn up. Are they really cops? Well their uniform suggests so!

Bruce Wayne runs off into the distance, the reddish stains of his blood destined to dissolve into the conrete but the stains of this lesson very much evident. He knows he must learn from this.

**IT WAS DUMB LUCK! **Dumb luck that the blood stains on the wall could not be read! Nothing for forensics to go on... a DNA match could not be made. DUMB LUCK! For 28 months Bruce has pondered on this idiosyncratic stroke of fortune that gave birth to the Bat-Man.

He will have to adopt a mask... a mask that will protect his loved ones but perhaps more importantly a mask which will strike fear into the hearts of all of his enemies...

**The Gotham- New York piepline**

During the early 20th century something that became infamously known as the 'New York-Chicago pipeline occured. During the late 20th century the same happening occured within the 2 great Cities on the Eastern coast of North America.


End file.
